


with adorations, with fertile tears

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Plus a little Much Ado About Nothing, Post-Canon, References to Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quotations, Twelfth Night - Freeform, Twist: Aziraphale is the Anxious One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21564937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: Oh, goodness. In which Aziraphale has a little bit of a meltdown during a high school production ofTwelfth Night.Title fromTwelfth Night,of course.For anyone who's ever longed to hold a hand in a high school auditorium.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 143





	with adorations, with fertile tears

The young girl was awfully twitchy as she approached him in the bookshop. _Not always a bad quality_ , Aziraphale didn’t fight the smile that came unbidden to his lips. No, this awkward, fidgety teenager in her patched and pinned over jacket, clutching her stack of papers as though her life depended upon their well-being… well, it should never occur to him to be bothered by her.

“How can I help you today, dear?” he asked, kindly. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. 

“Hello, sir,” she began, breathlessly, rehearsed but still quite nervous. “Could I please leave some flyers and posters here? They’re for my school play. We’re doing _Twelfth Night_ , sir.”

 _“Still prefer the funny ones.”_ Aziraphale’s heart twisted.

But that was the thing about Shakespeare’s funny ones, wasn’t it? They also happened to be the most romantic. Well, all right, sometimes. Perhaps not _The Comedy of Errors._

But _Twelfth Night…_

He must have been lost in his own thoughts for too long a moment, because the poor girl suddenly sputtered out, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bother you, sir. I’ll just go. I’m sorry.”

“No!” Aziraphale put a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Oh, my dear, not at all. I happen to love _Twelfth Night,_ and I simply found myself caught up in a moment of reverie. It would be a pleasure to display your posters here. Who are you in the play?”

Aziraphale didn’t care for all of the customers who came into his shop, but he couldn’t deny a soft spot for the teenagers who found their way through its doors. Quiet, bookish, sensitive… Perhaps somehow misplaced within a world that didn’t value them just yet. He longed for their happiness, for their safety. He knew what it was like to feel more at home with words and stories than with other beings. 

“I’m Sir Andrew Aguecheek, sir.” The girl finally smiled a little, unable to disguise her pride.

Aziraphale smiled back. “An excellent role. Congratulations.”

She gripped her posters tighter, and looked down at her hands. “Thank you, Mr. Fell.”

He didn’t know to whom to send the prayer anymore, but that didn’t stop him from making a silent wish for this twitchy young clown. 

“Well, I’ll put this up right in the front window,” he said. “And if I might keep a flyer as well?”

The girl left the shop, and Aziraphale studied the fresh literature in his hands. It really had been too long since he’d seen a good _Twelfth Night._

_Later._

“Angel, you must be joking.”

“I’m not! But there will be. Jokes, I mean. It’s a comedy!”

“You want to spend two hours watching Shakespeare be mangled by children?”

“Oh, I don’t know about ‘mangled.’ The child who dropped off the posters this afternoon seemed awfully bright. She’s playing Sir Andrew. Very good role, you know.”

“You think we’re not going to look a bit creepy showing up at a school where we don’t know any of the students?”

“Absolutely not! We are patrons of the arts!”

“So, let’s go see a real play tonight. I’ll get you tickets to whatever you like!”

Azirphale held the little flyer defiantly against his chest. “I like this.”

Crowley didn’t have an argument for that, Aziraphale noticed. The demon got quiet, studying Aziraphale, trying to determine whether he’d gone mad. Aziraphale tried to pretend that it wasn’t thrilling to have those eyes so intently focused on him. 

It had been weeks since the near-End of the World, and Aziraphale and Crowley were navigating their new normal. It wasn’t awfully unlike their old normal; they went for lunch, they strolled in the park, they drank too much wine. Without the threats of their respective head offices looming over them, they were free to do exactly as they pleased. And so they were.

Weren’t they?

Aziraphale was intelligent. He knew the question that hung over them. What now? He met Crowley’s golden gaze and held it for a moment. Not yet, his blue eyes must have always said, because Crowley looked away and jammed his hands into those tight pockets, and they kept moving. 

Aziraphale didn’t know why “not yet.” He knew how he felt about Crowley. He knew how Crowley felt about him. There was nothing to stop them any longer. Nothing to stop Aziraphale from stroking his fingers, as he so longed to, through Crowley’s red hair, to tell him how beautiful he was, to stop his ornery mouth with a kiss. 

_Do it,_ a little voice tugged at his sleeve. _Do it now. Kiss him._

He never denied himself anything, a second dessert, a rare first edition… Why couldn’t he have this, too?

 _Because you’ll ruin it,_ that little voice suddenly sneered. _Because you’re entirely ridiculous, and one day he’s going to grow tired of you._

It wasn’t a new thought, but the bluntness of it was a punch to the stomach all the same. He folded his hands together, pressed them against his many layers, willing all of his pieces to stay in order. 

“ _Twelfth Night,_ is it?”

Crowley’s voice, softer now and less dismissive, snapped him back into the present moment. 

Aziraphale nodded.

“Always did prefer the funny ones.”

 _I know, my dear._ Aziraphale pictured Crowley’s smile over the years. Aziraphale is supposed to be the creature of light, of the sun, of splendour. But Crowley’s grins and smirks, coupled with those marvelous eyes. His red head thrown back in laughter. He is simply dazzling. Aziraphale wondered how many times he had been just a touch too ridiculous in an effort to elicit that smile, that laughter. 

It was too much pressure to put on the young clown he met earlier, he knew, but Aziraphale still thought: _Make him laugh for me._

“All right, angel,” sighed Crowley. “Let’s go see a play tonight.”

Aziraphale beamed. 

_At the play._

“How nervous they must be,” murmured Aziraphale, fondly. He considered the ways that Shakespeare’s words had impacted him over the years. All the times he’d been brought to tears by an iamb. He tried to imagine what that must be like for a teenager. They were going through quite enough, after all, without adding betrayal and murder and ghosts and ill-fated romances into the mix. They must have been quite brave. He felt oddly proud of them. 

“How in the bloody hell…” Crowley struggled to fit his lanky frame into the auditorium’s creaky, plastic seats. 

“Well, at least we have seats,” Aziraphale offered. “No Groundling life for us tonight!”

Crowley glowered at him. “I don’t know what has gotten into you. Out of your mind.”

He didn’t quite know himself. Maybe it had been something about that young girl who had come into the shop. She had just been so nervous. Aziraphale wanted her to be alright. He wanted her to feel-- and to keep feeling-- that this thing that she loved mattered. It really felt like the least he could do. 

Besides, it was all awfully cozy. Folded up neatly in his little chair, holding the little styrofoam cup of cocoa over which Crowley had rolled his eyes but paid for anyway, sitting beside his favorite being. Crowley would soften up and have a good time, Aziraphale knew. 

_“If music be the food of love, play on.”_

The young actors really were quite good, but-- oh, how he loathed himself for it-- Aziraphale found himself struggling to concentrate. His mind wandered across time. He thought, not for the first time that day, not of _Twelfth Night,_ but of _Hamlet._

_Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love._

_Did Crowley doubt him?_ Aziraphale wondered. He had certainly stopped the demon in his tracks often enough. Had certainly said enough unkind things to him in the days leading up to Armageddon. What if it had all been too much?

_You need to do something. You need to show him._

Aziraphale suddenly felt terribly aware of his hands. As was his custom, they were folded neatly in his lap. He had held Crowley’s hand before. On the bus to Crowley’s flat after the near end. He had reached for it, for once, without thinking. It had been too long of a day to second guess himself. 

Now, though, in the darkness of this auditorium, enveloped by poetry, he was frozen. Hand holding had been appropriate after the almost End of the World. It had been so easy to write off as the action of a weary friend. Aziraphale was wide awake now. He had no excuse tonight. He just wanted. 

It was just Act One, and he was already barely paying attention. He perked up to see Sir Andrew make her first entrance, feeling as invested as he did in her success. She was wonderful. He was very proud. He wondered if Crowley was enjoying himself yet. 

Maria exited, leaving Cesario and Olivia alone on stage together. Aziraphale always loved this part. 

_Now. Do it now._

Aziraphale breathed, and moved one hand to the armrest of his little chair. Open, exposed, free for the taking. His lap suddenly felt so empty without the familiar pressure of his neatly folded hands. Maybe his hands had always lived there to keep his guts firmly in place. To keep them from spilling out and drowning them all.

 _Oh, this is too obvious,_ he admonished himself. _You absurd creature._

 _“But if you were the devil, you were fair,”_ came Cesario’s voice from onstage.

Crowley’s laughter beside him pulled him out of his nonsense. Aziraphale dared to glance at Crowley’s face. The demon’s mouth was set in such a way that Aziraphale suspected he hadn’t actually found the line all that funny. He wished he could see his eyes.

Because he _was_ fair. He was the most beautiful thing Aziraphale had ever seen, and he just wanted him to be happy. 

_So, you… took him to a high school play?_ The mean little voice was in rare form today.

 _“How does he love me?”_ asked Olivia onstage.

Cesario answered, _“With adorations, fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.”_

And, without meaning to, Aziraphale sighed aloud. It wasn’t his fault. He loved this part.

Crowley looked at him. Turned that gorgeous head of fire in his direction. And oh. Oh, dear.

His hand. 

His stupid, obvious, ridiculous hand. Crowley noticed. Crowley knew it for what it was. 

He did not take it.

Aziraphale felt pathetic. _You coward._

Crowley turned back to the action onstage, arms decidedly folded across his chest.

_You slow, ludicrous thing. Did you expect him to wait for you forever?_

Shame coursed through Aziraphale. He felt completely overwhelmed. (Shakespeare often did this to him.) He thought of the children onstage, so nervous and yet so brave. He thought of the Them, and of the courage they should have never been asked to demonstrate. He thought of all the ways the world could be such a frightening place, in ways big and small. The Apocalypse had been averted, but was anyone ever really out of the woods of pain and suffering? 

And was there, really, anything more painful than sitting in the dark beside a beautiful hand you can’t hold?

 _It’s not working,_ he was infuriated with himself. _TRY SOMETHING ELSE._

If human children could be brave, so could he. He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself. 

_“Why, what would you?”_ Onstage.

Aziraphale didn’t have the chance to lift his hand before a pair of lips was brushing against his ear. 

_“Make me a willow cabin at your gate,”_ Crowley murmured along with the actor onstage. _“And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night.”_

Aziraphale felt remarkably grateful for the fact that he didn’t actually need to breathe. 

_“Halloo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out ‘Aziraphale!’”_

Aziraphale dared to turn to the demon. Their noses brushed. 

_“O, you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me,”_ whispered Crowley practically into Aziraphale’s mouth. 

_But you should pity me._ Only then did Aziraphale realize that tears were flowing across his face.

“It’s your line, angel,” Crowley said, softly, thickly.

“I… I can’t recall what’s next,” Aziraphale was louder than he meant to be, his voice breaking against his tears.

A parent sitting a few rows in front of them turned to shush them and glare disapprovingly. _Oh, excellent. Now you can’t even hold yourself together long enough to practice proper theatre etiquette. You absolute fool._

“C’mon,” Crowley jerked his head towards the auditorium exit. 

Sniffling, Aziraphale followed. Crowley didn’t touch him. _This is it,_ Aziraphale was so sure of it. _THIS is the End of the World._ Crowley had been so patient, and he, Aziraphale, had been slothful and selfish.

They clambered out from their uncomfortable auditorium chairs, and eventually out of the school, into the cool evening air.

Crowley waited. Has waited. Cannot wait any longer.

“It’s still your line.”

“I told you. I don’t remember it.”

“I don’t care about Shakespeare’s line. I want to know yours.”

 _He was hurt,_ Aziraphale realized. _Of course he is,_ said the snotty little voice in his head. _How many years have you been stringing him along?_

Crowley offered a sad smile. “Do I need to ply you with more poetry? Angel, _I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”_

“How much Shakespeare do you have memorized?”

“Just the comedies. Told you. I prefer the funny ones.”

“The romantic ones,” Aziraphale countered.

“Maybe.”

“Are… are you certain?”

“Of what?”

“What you said. Just now. Are you sure of… of me, I suppose?”

“Aziraphale, look at me.”

Aziraphale titled his gaze up to meet Crowley’s. His yellow eyes fairly burned. 

“Angel, I’m only sure of you. What do you think I’m doing at a high school play on a Friday night otherwise?”

That made Aziraphale smile a little. 

“I go where you go. You want to see every high school production in the country? I’m there. And I’ll be proud to hold your hand at each and every one of them. I was just…” Crowley frowned then, pulled his eyes away.

 _Be brave._ Not the little voice, so insistent and cruel. Something softer and gentler. More like his own. 

And so Aziraphale finally stepped forward, and took Crowley’s hand in his, simply because it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world. Crowley let his fingers become laced with Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale brought his other hand to Crowley’s face, leading the demon’s gaze back to his own. 

“I might always be ridiculous,” Aziraphale confessed. That made Crowley chuckle a little. 

“Oh, I’m counting on it, angel.”

And that made Aziraphale smile a little more. 

“The funny ones, then?”

“Seen enough tragedies to last me several lifetimes.”

“All right, then. How about _The course of true love never did run smooth?”_

And Crowley finally laughed the laugh that Aziraphale had been craving all night, loud and barking and head thrown back. And Aziraphale felt happy, and that happiness made him courageous.

He dropped to one knee there in the grass, still holding Crowley’s hand.

“Crowley, _I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”_

And Crowley went to his knees, facing Aziraphale. He took Aziraphale’s other hand, and brought both to his chest.

 _“Come,”_ Crowley grinned. _“Bid me do any thing for thee.”_

Aziraphale wanted so many things; to be kissed, to say something alluring, to be clever. 

But what leapt out of his throat instead was simply, “Love me.”

And he began to weep again, undone by the openness of the request. Crowley wrapped his arms around the angel, and pulled him tight against his chest. 

“Aziraphale, I already do,” Crowley murmured again into his ear. “That’s nothing new, you sweet, silly creature. I always have, and I always will. Just as you are.”

Aziraphale pulled back a little to better see Crowley’s face. “And I love you,” he said, with a fierceness that surprised him. “Oh, my dearest, you must know that. Please tell me that you know. After everything I’ve said, after how slow I’ve been, please tell me that you still knew.”

Sadness crept into Crowley’s smile. “I wondered, angel.”

 _“Never doubt I love.”_ Shakespeare always said it best.

But he was finally running out of appropriate text to recite, so Aziraphale leaned forward and kissed Crowley there in the grass. Kneeling there across from one another, they held each other fast and close. And Aziraphale reached out and stroked Crowley’s hair. And Aziraphale told him how beautiful he was. And Aziraphale kissed Crowley again and again.

Because he was in love, and that love made Aziraphale feel brave. And the little voice of worry and scorn grew quiet until all he could hear was himself, whispering against Crowley’s face.

“Take me home, my dear?”

Crowley pulled away just enough.

“Don’t you want to finish the play?”

Aziraphale’s hug knocked him down to the grass.

And so they snuck back into the auditorium. And in the dark, they lost themselves in Shakespeare’s words and found themselves again in each other. They held hands, and caught their thoughts sometimes drifting from the action onstage and instead to what would happen when they got home. But they returned to the play easily enough, because there was time. Time to stroke thumb against thumb, time to press lips to knuckles, time to leap to their feet in a standing ovation (Aziraphale crying all over again), time to wait in the lobby for the young actors, time to tell them how wonderful they had been…

“Oh, look,” Crowley gestured his and Aziraphale’s hand together towards a poster on the wall. “They’re doing _Blithe Spirit_ in the spring. Should we come back?”

“Splendid idea, darling.” Aziraphale smiled. The little voice left him alone.

_London, 1601_

The crowd roared around him as Fortinbras delivered his final line. Aziraphale was delighted.

As his fellow Groundlings made their way out of the Globe, shoulders knocking into shoulders, Aziraphale swam upstream through the crowd, searching. 

Aziraphale tapped Will on the shoulder.

“Pardon me, Master Shakespeare?”

The playwright seemed delighted to seem him. “Back again, are you? This must be your fifth time seeing it!”

“Sixth,” Aziraphale corrected, gently. “Master Shakespeare, might I inquire after a favor?”

“For _Hamlet’s_ star patron, anything.”

“I certainly have no right to presume upon the creative process, I know, but I only wondered,” Aziraphale felt his cheeks color a little at his own boldness. “Well, if you might set to work on a funny one next?”

“I thought it was your handsome companion who preferred the funny ones,” Will smiled, a little too knowingly.

The words kept spilling out. “Something funny,” Aziraphale repeated, firmly. “And something about love. True love. A love that aches. Oh, but it isn’t simple, of course.” He was rambling, he knew. “Circumstances out of their control keep our lovers apart, and--” 

“Doesn’t sound very funny.”

“Well, yes. Quite.” Aziraphale thought for a moment before replying. “But, of course, there’s a happy ending, isn’t there?”

_Present Day._

There was. 

There is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first fic, and I was very anxious about posting it. Have a lovely day.


End file.
